Active 24 is a leading pan-European Web hosting and domain registration provider serving more than 240,000 customers in 16 countries. A24's CEO, Jaap Zuiderfeld, discusses the company's expansion strategy and its intent to dominate the lucrative European Web hosting market.

Interview by Cliff Boodoosingh

TH: Active 24 has created a huge Web hosting footprint across Europe with several acquisitions. Is this growth strategy going to continue? Is there a customer target or market share figure that the company is trying to achieve via acquisition?

JZ: Our short-term goal is to reach 400,000 registered domains by the end of next year. Today we have around 300,000. We have a combination of organic and inorganic strategies that we’ll continue to employ to achieve this goal, which is primarily to be the leading European hosting provider.

TH: Active 24 has significant market presence in countries such as the UK, France, Germany (and several others), why not Italy? Is an acquisition in that country on the Active 24 radar screen?

JZ: We only have a virtual presence in France and Germany, at the current time. As you are aware, we are market leaders in Norway, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Holland so far. We are looking for opportunities in all European countries, all of the time. But we need to carefully evaluate the options, and will not buy anything that doesn’t fit our strategy. Italy does not currently fit into our corporate strategy.

TH: When Active 24 is researching Web hosting companies with acquisition in mind, what are the primary considerations (company characteristics) before going ahead with the deal? Conversely, what things about companies will make you walk away from the decision to buy?

JZ: We look for companies that fit into our customer base and our strategy. That’s essentially companies that are easily integrated and have a similar product portfolio so they can be supported with our existing infrastructure. We also look for new/other products that we can add to our existing product range. And if the company doesn’t have these criteria, we have no alternative but to walk away.

TH: To follow up on your earlier statement, what plans does Active 24 have in place for organic growth?

JZ: We plan to keep on offering comprehensive products and continue to look for products, knowledge and skills that add value within Active 24’s current product and service portfolio. Among these are fully automated control panel and customer service. We’re also laser focused on building a brand, which the customer will see as their number one choice and be ‘front-of-mind’.

We’ll continue to establish a local presence in fast growing markets - and markets where we currently have no presence - through acquisition and grow our market share in existing markets by acquiring customer assets.

TH: Tell us about some of the company’s marketing initiatives. Do you look to advertising opportunities such as the World Cup in Germany in 2006 to increase your brand recognition?

JZ: We believe in online marketing as the most powerful tool to attract customers. That’s what our business is all about, being visible worldwide on the Internet. For the time being we are not looking to sponsor large European events like the World Cup in Germany, but have strategic partnerships like Ellen MacArthur. [Dame Ellen is the record-breaking yachtswoman and the fastest person to sail solo non-stop around the world.] We have a complex managed solution that is designed to handle the massive amounts of traffic experienced during her record attempts. For example, when she broke the ‘round the world record’, the platform we designed for her was pushing 40MBps.